Open Your Eyes
by Cold Fire Phoenix
Summary: AU. Kagome inadvertently wakes up a coma patient, just to discover that he's much more than what he seems. When the Japanese Underworld is more than just a crime organization, what's a mythology major to do?
1. Disclaimer

Heya, everyone! I'd like to have a bit of ANOTHER disclaimer with everyone who cares, or doesn't. You see Inuyasha®? See the ®? Means the rights are reserved. See Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi? See the ©? Means that Inuyasha is copyrighted to Rumiko Takahashi. See my name anywhere? No?  
  
What can you infer from this? Heh-heh, I don't own Inuyasha! Someone else does! The creator and those affialiated with her works do! Not me! O__o;  
  
And for those who've read what I've done for Forgiven's Not Forgotten--- Don't worry! The next chapter should be out soon, soon, soon! :: ahem ::  
  
Right! Well, as far as Open Your Eye's is concerned, there isn't too much to know. This is AU, and the only thing you might want to already have knowledge on is the names of the major player's in Inuyasha and who is demon/half demon so on and so forth.  
  
Now, as for pairings. . . Those will be decided later on. The good news about this story is that Kagome's whole family DOESN'T die! . . . Though there are several deaths, but you'll probably be happy or not on some depending on whom you are.  
  
Erm, before Red Liger, Icchan, or the News Guy show up, please read on! Read, review, and or flame! In the end, constructive criticism would be appreciated as well, but anything goes! Even if I only live to spite. . . Hehehe.  
  
On with the show! 


	2. When You First Awoke

Open Your Eyes - When First You Woke  
  
Hojo slowed his car to a stop as he approached the Jicharu Hospital. "Here you go, Kagome." The young woman opened the door without a word, excitement in her heart.  
  
Drawing her coat tightly around herself, she stepped out into the snowstorm. Kagome thanked Hojo with a smile and hurried down the sidewalk to the hospital entrance. He waved to her unseeing back before pulling away from the curb and disappearing into the white.  
  
Not bothering with the motion-activated main entrance, Kagome pulled open a door to the side. Her father was on duty tonight, and she had wanted to surprise him with an early Christmas gift. She had just gotten home from college an hour ago, and was eager to see her father again, just as she hoped he would be to see her.  
  
Pausing at the information desk, Kagome smiled at the woman there. "Hello Yoko! Long time no see!"  
  
The brunette turned around, shock in her eyes and a smile on her lips. "Kagome! You're back from college!" The young woman nodded, her own smile glowing. Yoko continued on, exiting her little office to come around and hug the younger woman. "Does your father know you're back yet?"  
  
Kagome shook her head in negation, a devious smile decorating her face. "I wanted to surprise him."  
  
Yoko nodded in understanding, holding Kagome at arms length. "Well, I'd better let you go surprise him, then. Tonight's been rather quiet, if you know what I mean."  
  
Moving away as Yoko dropped her arms, Kagome nodded. "I do. Nice seeing you again, Yoko."  
  
The woman smiled, in a matronly way. "You too, honey. Oh, you might want to stop by Tamika's desk. She'd never forgive me if I didn't send you by."  
  
Kagome nodded again, setting off at a brisk pace down the corridor. After a short time, another desk appeared in the hall. Another woman, much more stout than the first with hair much darker, sat in her scrubs looking through patient's files. Kagome suspected that Tamika was about to run her last round of the day before switching off with the nurse on zombie watch. That term still gave Kagome the shivers.  
  
"Tamika?"  
  
The woman turned around with a great big smile on her face. "Kagome! It is you! How have you been, my little college-kid?"  
  
One advantage to having often visited the hospital her father worked at was that pretty much everyone knew her. They became a rather extended family, a whole slew of aunts and uncles to Kagome and her younger brother Souta. Especially after. . . The accident.  
  
She supposed she would stop by to visit her brother before finding her father, speaking of which, "Tamika, do you know where daddy is?"  
  
Tamika was still smiling, though it was still a bit forced. "He's in surgery for the next hour at least. We're hoping that this one won't go comatose, but there was severe damage to their cranium. It's a miracle that they have survived for this long. However, a bit of good news! Souta's been showing more brain activity recently! It's possible that he might wake up soon, but after that. . . " The nurse didn't continue, knowing full well that Kagome had already weighed the probabilities.  
  
The young woman nodded, eyes slightly saddened but still hopeful. "I know, Tamika. Do you think I could-?"  
  
Tamika smiled once more, though now there was the slightest sad tinge. "Of course, Kagome. It's the least I could do for you. He's in the same room as always." The nurse seemed to remember something, snapping her fingers. "If you're going that way, could you do me a favor? One of the assistants is sick, and another is snowed in at her apartment. Do you think you could drop these records off in one of the patient's rooms?"  
  
Kagome nodded, perplexed. "Are they in Souta's section?"  
  
"Yep. They were transferred from the hospital in southern Tokyo a few weeks ago, but I hadn't been able to get around to updating their records. One of the charity cases your father decided on taking on. No living family as far as anyone could find out, and only a first name from the girlfriend before she passed away from injuries. Sad, if you ask me." Tamika was digging through the papers on the counter, before pulling the file she had been searching for out and handing the papers to Kagome. "If you could drop them off after visiting with Souta, I'd be forever in your debt."  
  
Kagome waved a dismissing hand, one corner of her mouth quirking upward. "It's nothing, Tamika. Don't worry about the file; it'll get where it needs to go." Kagome started off, heading toward the elevators. She hadn't visited in months, but her heart knew the way as well as her feet did. Up three floors, through the doors on the left, down the hall and right into the third passageway, fifth door on the left.  
  
The beeping of several different machines assaulted her ears, as they always did. The steady breathing of her brother with the help of yet more machines brought a grateful tear to Kagome's eyes, as she wandered to the chair at her brother's bedside, file in hand. "Hey there, Souta. How's it going? It's getting close to Christmas again."  
  
There was no acknowledgement, not even a change in brain wave length. He wasn't responding, which seemed to be rather normal for the teenager. Normal, but so terribly unnatural.  
  
Squeezing her brother's limp hand, Kagome sighed. Her gaze traveled down to the file that she had set in her lap, anything to distract her from the somewhat depressive sight of her younger sibling. Kagome was slightly surprised as she read the patients name, understanding how hard it would be to place them. "Inuyasha?"  
  
A sudden change in the noise the machine monitoring Souta's brain function caused Kagome to look up. There had been activity. For one moment, Souta was even closer to waking up.  
  
"Souta? Souta! Can you hear me? Are you somewhere in there? Can you wake up? Souta!"  
  
The effort was futile. The machine had settled back into its pattern of monotony, and for all Kagome called, begged, and pleaded her brother never responded. Tears sprung to her eyes, and for shame of her weakness Kagome stood, readying herself to leave. "I'll see you tomorrow, little brother." Hurriedly, the twenty-one year old exited the room that had held her little brother prisoner for the past two years.  
  
Closing the door, Kagome leaned back against the cold wooden surface. Tears still coursed down her face. How can it still hurt this much?  
  
Perhaps because Kagome still believed in her heart of hearts that she could have done something to have stopped Souta from leaving that day, stopped him from being hit by that car. No matter that she had been half-way across the country; she still should have been able to do something to somehow save her brother. Yet she couldn't.  
  
She had to face the facts, and deal. She had been doing rather well, until she saw his sleeping face. So peaceful, so empty. Like a dolls face, pale and worn but eternally youthful.  
  
Pushing away from the door, Kagome took a deep breath, allowing her natural good cheer to inch back in. Souta would recover, eventually. To see him laugh once more would be the greatest joy in Kagome's life.  
  
Yet right now she had a duty to attend to. Looking at the room number listed on the file she had never let go of, she was surprised to see that the room was two down from Souta's. Opening the door, Kagome was greeted with emptiness. "What? Who did these charts?" Confused, Kagome decided to check the room number again.  
  
Small wonder that she had read it incorrectly. Backtracking, she found herself in front of the door directly next to her brother's own. Sighing for the millionth time that night, she pushed open the indifferent door to be greeted by the sight of someone actually in the room. In the bed, that is.  
  
"Great." Walking to the foot of the patient's bed, she checked to make sure she hadn't misread the number for a second time. No files rested there, allowing Kagome to be relatively sure that this person was Inuyasha. Sliding the file into its cradle, Kagome gazed upon the man lying so motionless, like her brother. Yet this wasn't what caught her attention. Rather it was the mane of silver-white hair, and the unmistakable sight of dog-like ears on his head.  
  
Quickly pulling the file out again, Kagome walked over to the wall light and furiously flipped through papers when it flickered to life. "Just what kind of accident was this guy in?"  
  
Her answer stared her in the face, a cruel response that brought to mind her brother lying in the next room. "Car accident." Looking at the man lying in the hospital bed, Kagome's eyes grew sad. "He was in a car accident."  
  
Returning to her reading, the sable haired young woman did all she could not to cry. Apparently, his ears had been so terribly damaged that they had tried an animal implant, though they wouldn't know if it was successful until the subject woke. Kagome shivered.  
  
Subject was such a very cruel word.  
  
The hair was genetically colorless, though privately Kagome disagreed. There was just. . . A somewhat different color, not an absence. That was perhaps what she least liked about her father's profession. There was a tendency to overanalyze, and unromanticize. This, she supposed, was a good thing.  
  
Another side note caught her eye, the report of the nurse that had been put in charge of the young man when he was brought in. Apparently, he had been awake enough then to murmur words, evidenced by the nurse's report of the young man going on about something "Shikon".  
  
Nor had he been the only one involved in the accident. His passenger, a young lady that most likely was his girlfriend, died not long after arriving at the hospital. The paramedics had gotten two words from her incoherent screams, among them "Inuyasha" and "Help." It was assumed that "Inuyasha" was the name of the driver.  
  
That had been five years ago.  
  
Kagome looked up, closing the file guiltily. Five years ago this young man, according to the early reports of the doctors, had been her age.  
  
No one had ever come for him; no one had ever named him family. For some inexplicable reason, this made Kagome sad. Or maybe not so inexplicable.  
  
Everyone needed family, even if you didn't know they were there.  
  
Walking to the foot of the bed once more, Kagome slid the file into the cradle for the last time. Walking back up the head of the bed, she started to turn the small knob on the light that would send the room crashing into darkness. Once the lamp had gone black, the darkness overtook her. Artificial light shone through the open door in a slice of warmth, a contrast to the outside weather. Glancing at the impassive face of the mysterious Inuyasha, comatose and unmoving, Kagome felt moved to do what she had always done with her brother when she was able.  
  
Reaching a hand out, she softly brushed the man's cheek, remarkably smooth. "Good night, Inuyasha. Wake up soon."  
  
Odd sentiment, as well as misconduct, but even opening his files when she wasn't an employee at the hospital was illegal. Kagome turned to leave, almost reluctant to join the world again. For a moment, here in a stranger's room, she had felt important, integral even. Once she left, it was back to being Kagome, good ol' reliable Kagome with her brother that hadn't woken for years and was prone to pulling a Rip Van Winkle. Kagome with her slightly insane mother and Neurosurgeon father. Kagome of the bright future and dark past. Kagome.  
  
Something stopped her. Something physical, tangible. Her eyes drifted to her hand in shock, noticing the hand grabbing her wrist. A voice spoke from the bed.  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
Impossible. A man that had been comatose for five years just grabbed her by the wrist and asked her who she was. "My god, I'm hallucinating." Kagome attempted to walk away, but was pulled back and twisted around to face the man on the bed. "Or maybe not."  
  
"Answer me." The man met Kagome's confused, disbelieving gaze with dark eyes. "Are you a nurse?"  
  
"No. Now could you please let go of my wrist?" Kagome stopped. "My god, I'm even talking with my hallucination. I must be going insane."  
  
The man growled, or at least Kagome thought he did. She couldn't tell, and wasn't about to ask.  
  
"I am not a hallucination, bitch."  
  
That killed Kagome's weak excuse. "You're right. I'd never have such a vulgar mouth on any hallucination of mine. Maybe I'm just dreaming. I must have fallen asleep at Souta's bedside. But then that means I still have to deliver Inuyasha's records!" Something akin to panic alighted in the young woman's eyes. "I need to wake up!"  
  
The man on the bed was getting more annoyed, evidenced by his cruel yanking on Kagome's arm to bring her closer. Ripping the IV's out of his arm with his other hand, the man then rudely pinched Kagome's cheek.  
  
"Ow!" Kagome said in surprise as she lifted a hand to her reddening face. "That hurt!"  
  
"You are awake. Now tell me, who are you and how do you know my name?"  
  
Kagome stared at the man in mortification. "So you are Inuyasha? I thought that was just a. . . "  
  
"Just a what, bitch?" Inuyasha looked confused, though his piercing eyes never left Kagome's.  
  
". . . Nothing."  
  
Inuyasha was growing angrier by the moment. Still locking gazes with Kagome, he began taking out the remaining IV's. "Who ARE you?"  
  
Why was it that this Inuyasha had been in a coma for the past five years and still he was strong enough to pull Kagome back toward the bed against her will? He must have had some dedicated nurse at his previous hospital. "Higurashi. Kagome Higurashi."  
  
"Never heard of you."  
  
Why would you have? She wondered to herself. "Why did you wake up?"  
  
Inuyasha growled, and there was no mistaking the sound. "Why wouldn't I?" He began to rise, pushing back the sheets and standing in his ridiculous hospital gown. "I'm a light sleeper."  
  
Kagome was confounded. "A light sleeper? You've been in a coma for the past five years, and you wonder why you wouldn't spontaneously wake up?"  
  
Inuyasha froze, turning his hard gaze on Kagome, who was forced to look up to meet his eyes. "What," he asked in a low and dangerous voice, "Did you just say?"  
  
"You heard me." Kagome's voice had dropped, noticeably sad. "You've been comatose for five years. Ever since you were twenty-one."  
  
Inuyasha was shocked. After a moment of silence, in which Kagome desperately tried to fight back tears, he spoke. "Where's Kikyou?"  
  
"Kiky-" Kagome started, before realizing something. She probably was the young woman who died. "I'm sorry, Inuyasha. She died."  
  
His head fell in regret, though not a sound escaped his lips. Kagome tried to use this opportunity to leave, and so exited through the door. Without hesitating, she reopened her own brother's room, closing the heavy door behind her. "Oh, Souta. . . "  
  
Things were deteriorating, falling down about her as quickly as the snow fell in the night. She sat herself down in the bedside chair for a second time, reaching for Souta's lifeless hand. "Why couldn't it have been you?"  
  
The tears she had held back earlier flowed freely now. "How is it," she gasped between sobs she hadn't thought she'd utter tonight, "That I can wake a stranger, yet my own family is beyond my reach?"  
  
There was no response.  
  
That is, if she ignored the voice that spoke from the reopened door. "Son?"  
  
Kagome felt hollow, so different that what she had felt in the room with Inuyasha not partaking in the world's activities. "No," she replied, voice hoarse from tears. "Brother."  
  
Silence, followed by, "Feh. Siblings aren't worth the tears."  
  
Kagome took a calming breath, deep and long. This man sounded like the typical 'I've got a dark past I say I don't want to talk about but really deep down I do' case her roommate Sakki spoke of at college. That's what you get for having a Psychology major as a best friend.  
  
So Kagome did the exact opposite of what Sakki would have done. "Get the hell back in your room." Her voice was perfectly calm and controlled.  
  
Inuyasha snorted. "Like hell I am. I'm getting out of this place."  
  
A prison. Inuyasha made the hospital sound like a prison. Yet hadn't Kagome thought much the same thing when she'd see Souta, lying so still between the pristine sheets?  
  
Never mind that. The young woman stood, letting her brother's hand fall back to the bed unharmed. Turning, she glared at the man who should still be hooked up to God-knows how many IV's, dead to the world. Like her brother. Like her Souta.  
  
But no, here he stood outside her brother's door, clad in that absurd hospital gown and meeting her gaze stare for stare. The unfairness of it all bombarded Kagome's reserve until she tore down her own placid walls. "Get. Back. In. Your. Room." The words sounded bitten off and harsh to Kagome's ears, and made the fantastical ones on Inuyasha's head twitch.  
  
Kagome wondered at the miracles of neurotransmitters before moving toward the man, forcing him to back off to let her out of the room.  
  
"Who do you think you are, my mother?" Kagome could almost swear she heard the man growl, but let it roll off her back like everything else.  
  
"No, I-" Kagome cut herself short, hearing voices coming toward them from the main hallway. "Someone's coming," she whispered, frightened of discover by any of the nurses she didn't know, let alone the ones she did.  
  
"I'm not deaf, bitch," Inuyasha answered back, completely unconcerned.  
  
Kagome, however, was reverting to her teenage years. "Hurry," she hissed at the patient, grabbing his arm and yanking him back into her brother's room.  
  
"Hey, what the hell do you think-" Inuyasha's flow of words was cut off when Kagome slapped her hand over his mouth.  
  
"Shut up, idiot," she hissed, mentally calculating the nurses' progress. The ones assigned to this corridor weren't here tonight, and seeing as how Souta and Inuyasha were the only ones in this section at the moment, the others should just pass on by.  
  
Of course, nothing seemed to want to go her way as she heard footsteps walking down their hallway. Inuyasha stopped trying to pry her hand off his mouth as the threat made itself known to him.  
  
Kagome saw his questioning gaze, and used her other arm to yank his shoulder down so she could whisper into his canine ears. "There shouldn't be anyone monitoring this hall tonight. The nurses assigned here are out for the night, and Tamika won't make her rounds until much later. Regardless, if those nurses find you out of your room, I'm in big trouble."  
  
The man rudely succeeded in dislodging her hand from his face. "Why would you be in trouble bitch?" His whispered tone was throaty if understandable.  
  
"Would you believe that someone just happened to wake up from a five year coma and just happened to disappear when you went into their room? I'd be charged with abducting a patient!"  
  
Inuyasha gave her a disbelieving stare. "Wouldn't you just have to show them me? I can speak for myself, you know. Moron." He added under his breath, though Kagome still heard.  
  
"No!" she whispered furiously. "Then I'd have to explain how you woke up, or why I was in your room long enough to witness your awakening!"  
  
He raised an eyebrow, lowering his head a bit. "How long were you in my room?"  
  
Kagome grimaced, returning her senses to what lie outside her brother's home of two years. "Long enough."  
  
Inuyasha began to ask yet another question, but Kagome slapped her hand over his mouth again to his great annoyance. "Shush!"  
  
Voices reached her straining ears, first before their door, then in front of it, then a small distance beyond. "This is his room, right?"  
  
"Yep. This is the transfer from a few weeks back. What did that man call him?"  
  
"Inuyasha. It's on the records, you idiot. Let's just hurry up and get this over with."  
  
"Won't anyone suspect anything?"  
  
"Nope. He doesn't seem to have any family, and is basically a charity case. They'll probably just think he finally croaked."  
  
The man whom the two female nurses spoke of sent a chilling look at the solid door that separated him from them. Hands clenched in fists at his side while Kagome continued to concentrate her attention on what was being said.  
  
"But, but I don't know, Kazumi. . . "  
  
"There's a lot worse you could do for ten million American dollars, Hanishi. Think of this as putting him out of his pain." With that, 'Kazumi' opened the door.  
  
"What the!"  
  
"Kazumi! Please, be quiet! Someone might hear you!"  
  
"Don't worry, they're a whole bunch of heavy sleepers anyway Hanishi. It's who should be here that I'm worried about!"  
  
". . . He's gone?" Hanishi asked in a small voice.  
  
"Yes! So put your damn conscious to rest! I don't look forward to telling this to Nasai."  
  
"Kazumi. . . "  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"He scares me."  
  
"Shut up, Hanishi. Just shut up."  
  
The door shut with a bang, two sets of feet clicking away in a hurry.  
  
Kagome waited for a while, counting her breaths. Finally, she let a sigh escape. "They're gone."  
  
The patient glared at her, and she noticed that her hand still covered him mouth. "Sorry," she mumbled. "I'm sure," he grumbled. Kagome was slightly peeved. Couldn't he even thank her for just saving his life?  
  
Not that she knew she was saving his life, but still. The thoughts of the two nurses, with names Kagome wasn't familiar with, stealing into any patient's room and messing with the medication or equipment was enough to send her into cold shivers.  
  
The fact that someone had paid them to do it froze her soul.  
  
"So," she said, turning to glare at the man to her side. "Got anything you'd like to tell me?"  
  
He didn't answer, eyes stuck to the relative area of her bosom. "What are you looking at?" Her tone of voice was slightly angered.  
  
"The Shikon. How did you get the Shikon?" He reached out toward Kagome's chest, but she stepped backward, noticing for the first time that the necklace her brother had given her four years ago for her birthday was now out in plain view.  
  
"What are you talking about? Are you some religious fanatic or something?" Kagome felt a corner of her brother's bed nudge her leg. The man walking toward her looked ready to pounce at any moment, and in fear of her brother's continued existence, Kagome darted around Inuyasha.  
  
The door flew open under her frightened hands. Why the hell did she have to wake up an insane, sex-deprived, and thoroughly disturbing man?  
  
Who knew. Yet however this had happened, Kagome was now fully in play.  
  
In her slight panic, Kagome found herself opening the door to Inuyasha's room once more, closing it behind her.  
  
This was to little avail, as she soon learned. The man whom by all logical reasoning should have trouble standing, let along walking, burst through the door with strength few healthy men had in their prime. "Give me the Shikon, bitch!"  
  
Kagome stumbled back as he threw himself at her, fingernails drawing blood as they scraped her chest, coming away with the prize. The small trinket, the present of her un-acknowledging brother. Fortunately, not her shirt.  
  
"Give that back!" Kagome was desperate. She didn't want to lose the small reminder of her brother, or her past. "Please, give that back to me!"  
  
Inuyasha gave off a feral growl that Kagome couldn't believe she had heard. She wondered briefly if the doctors that had transplanted his ears had transplanted a bit more than that. This thought was stopped when Inuyasha crashed through the window in the room and went plunging trough the snow three stories to the ground.  
  
Kagome was shocked. After all that, he was suicidal? Praying that somehow the man was still alive, or that at least her brother's gift was intact, Kagome raced back into the hallway, finding her way to the emergency staircase and all but flying down to the ground floor.  
  
She pushed open the emergency exit, running out into the snowstorm. Slipping slightly in the snow, Kagome raced around the corner-And slid to a stop in absolute surprise.  
  
Ten yards off, Inuyasha stood shivering in the cold, trinket clutched in hand, without a mark on his body. Slowly, he inclined his head toward Kagome, as his knees gave out from under him. "It's. . . Winter. . . "  
  
Kagome watched the man fall, dumbfounded. He had just fallen three stories, and was collapsing because of the cold?  
  
Through her incredulity, Kagome managed to make herself move toward the still man. Small wonder he was freezing, considering it was below zero Celsius outside and he was only wearing a hospital gown.  
  
Taking the coat that she had been wearing since first entering the hospital off her shoulders, Kagome draped it over Inuyasha's shoulders. The man that had seemed so large a minute ago was once more slender and life-size. Pulling his upper body up, Kagome huffed as she held him halfway in her lap, looking up at the broken window far above to her right.  
  
"How to get you back, I wonder." Kagome knew it was the correct and legal thing to do. In fact, she was determined to drag the limp patient all the way back up the stairs if she had to. Until. . .  
  
Until she heard the voices from earlier call out from above. Thankfully the snow was too thick to part easily with the eyes, for Kagome was suddenly sure that the nurses would have seen them otherwise. She also felt her heart fall at the dreadful certainty that they would kill the man in her unwilling arms if she brought him back.  
  
"Just what are you, Inuyasha, that someone would want you dead?"  
  
Mulling over options in an increasingly less lucid mind, Kagome found herself coming to a greatly disliked conclusion. She was going to have to bring the man home with her.  
  
And in her father's BMW.  
  
Hooking her arms under Inuyasha's own, Kagome began to drag the dead-weight through the deepening snow toward the employee parking garage. She knew where her father's car would be, if only she could make it. . .  
  
And after a half hour of struggling, cursing, and creative pulling, she managed to do the impossible. Leaning Inuyasha against the vehicle, she held her breath as she pulled a single undecorated key from her jean pocket. "Thank you Daddy," she murmured, using the key to unlock the door to the import car.  
  
With a final heave, Kagome managed to get Inuyasha into the passenger seat. What should have been a driver's seat, but because of her father's love of cars better suited for other countries, the reverse was true.  
  
Propping the unconscious yet breathing man up, Kagome struggled to get the seatbelt strapped. She felt awkward leaning over his lap to see the buckle, but brushed the feeling off. Awkwardness could come later, just not right now.  
  
Finally Kagome was able to close the passenger door, and quickly she made her way to the driver's side. Making her securing much more quickly, Kagome started the engine and backed out little by little.  
  
With an unconscious person in the seat beside her, an American import CD playing 'Jazz for Lovers' on the speakers, and a snowstorm making bleached clothing look colorful raging about her once she left the confines of the garage, Kagome knew it was going to be a long drive home. 


	3. When First I Saw

Open Your Eyes - When First I Saw  
  
Acting on a brilliant thought Kagome caught on the drive, the young woman called up Yoko, asking her to tell her father that she had taken his car to pick up a friend from the airport who had a change in flight plans, and to say she was sorry for not actually seeing him herself.  
  
"Don't you worry, Kagome. I'll be sure to tell him. You just concentrate on driving safetly in that damned import of Doctor Higurashi's, you hear?" Yoko's voice was high and tinny over the cell phone. Kagome was faintly surprised the the phone had actually worked.  
  
Kagome truly felt as if she had a starring role in the newest horror flick, "Guys in Comas with Deadly People After Them." Sounds like a box office hit. . . Though probably only in America.  
  
She could see it on the script now: College student drives madly while camera switches to view of many men in black coats contemplating murder. Except, in better film format.  
  
Perhaps instead with a bunch of men in white coats. Kagome sure felt like she was going crazy.  
  
The jazz was getting on her nerves, and so she turned it off. With the heater on full blast, mostly in benefit of the man next to her, Kagome was feeling a bit put out. "Just what the hell ARE you?"  
  
The man in question flinched in his semi-natural slumber.  
  
"I mean, I might not be a doctor or anything, but I sure as hell know that people don't just wake up perfectly unharmed from a coma! Especially not one that's lasted five years! Hell, most people would have pulled the plug by then! That's what they wanted us to do with Souta, at first. Bastards." Kagome's face was flushing from her own heated argument with. . . Herself.  
  
"What's even better is that you jumped out of a third story window and didn't even flinch!" Her mind had come back to the enigma that was Inuyasha. "Is Inuyasha even your real NAME?"  
  
The young woman paused, squinting through the snow ahead. She felt ready to clobber something.  
  
Kagome was most assuredly not acting like herself. The young woman wished she could balme her change of temperament on the patient she had more or less kidnapped, in the eyes of the authorities, but the reality was she had only herself to blame. Her own hopes of waking her brother that was slipping ever further from her grasp. What would he be like if he did awake? Would he be the same, would anything be the same?  
  
There were no answers, and Kagome didn't like the uncertainty this brought. Beside her, the person labeled 'Inuyasha' started to snore.  
  
Glancing over at her unexpected passenger, Kagome noticed something she had previously forgotten. By some miracle he still had the necklace her brother had given her years ago.  
  
Leaning over, Kagome tugged the jewelry out of his hand, jerking the wheel sideways at the same time due to an unconscious tightening of his hand. Sitting up again while simultaneously slipping the necklace into her shirt pocket and steering the car back to her side of the road, Kagome decided that it was better to concentrate on driving. For a moment, her mind flashed the images she had seen of various car accidents.  
  
None of the images were comforting.  
  
Especially not after her brother. . . Not after what had happened to him.  
  
Does the hurt ever go away? Kagome couldn't say.  
  
More time passed, the silence that Kagome had fallen into interrupted only by the intake of breath from the young man. Young. . . Thing. She had no idea.  
  
Eventually, she pulled to the roadside, near the base of a mountain of stairs. "Home." The word was a sigh. Memories assaulted Kagome's inner barriers, but she crushed them under her firm sense of now and here.  
  
The momentuous problem that now faced her was getting the sleeping Inuyasha up all those very imposing steps to the house at the top. She was most certainly not looking forward to the experience.  
  
As Inuyasha tossed in his sleep, cringing back from the cold air she was letting into the Mercedes, Kagome could tell he wasn't either. For a moment she pitied him.  
  
That moment was soon gone. "Screw it." Pocketing the keys and stepping out into the flurries, she slammed the door shut. Watching her step, she made her way to the passenger side, yanking the door open by its friged handle. Her passenger let out a sleepy snarl, recoiling from the cold.  
  
Too fucking bad, asshole. Addmittedly she had felt pity for the guy when she had learned someone was out to kill him, but past that he had attacked her, stolen the last present she had ever received from her brother, and fallen unconscious in the snow, forcing her to drag him to her father's car.  
  
All completely valid reasons. Except, perhaps the unconscious thing, but from the short time she had know Inuyasha, she doubted this was the case. He'd fall unconscious just to piss her off, she was sure.  
  
It was on these thoughts that Kagome leaned over his prone form and unbuckled him. Grabbing his shoulders, the young woman dragged him out of the car, his legs hitting the snow-covered and slightly trampled ground. Inuyasha whimpered, whilst Kagome stumbled under his deadweight. "Jack ass."  
  
Even so, Kagome felt bad for the former patient wearing only his flimsy hospital gown, and now her jacket. Managing to prop the annoyingly unaware Inuyasha up against the car, Kagome pulled him onto her back. That is, she managed to get his head and arms over her shoulders, his chest and stomach pressed to her back and his longer legs dragging in the snow. Knees coming close to buckling, Kagome made her determined way to the first stair.  
  
It was the longest three steps of her life.  
  
"Why'd. . . You have. . . To be so. . . Heavy?" she managed to gasp out. She was answered with an exhalation in her ear. The tickling sensation fueled her irrational anger further. As she started up the stairs, she positively growled with pent up frustration.  
  
Her own mental image of what she must look like right now did nothing to help. The even more disturbing image of the men in white coats that she had thought of earlier popping out of the snow and taking her into custody was even worse. She had to be crazy, going to the lengths that she was at the moment. For a stranger, whom hadn't even said a noteworthy word to her.  
  
Lost in thought, she stumbled and almost went down, Inuyasha's deadweight helping her not at all. The young woman fell to her knees before scrambling to her feet. By some miracle, she had made it three quarters of the way up during her unseen climb.  
  
The next miracle would be making it to the top.  
  
So, in an effort to motivate herself, she began couniting her breaths. Labeling her actions. In, out, step, in, out, step, step, in, out, pause, readjust. . .  
  
It wasn't until Kagome attempted to climb a stair that wasn't there that she realized she had done the near impossible. She had carried a man larger than herself up at least a thousand stairs as deadweight. "Take that, all you doubters!"  
  
Which one she meant, since none had witnessed her struggle, was unclear.  
  
Resorting to dragging the peacefully snoring Inuyasha through the drifting snow to the house's front door, Kagome weakly attempted to relieve the stress she had put upon her back by laboring up the 'Damned Stairs' as she had taken to referring to them as in the last half-hour.  
  
It wasn't working, and for a brief moment of complete cruelty Kagome was tempted to kick the hunted idiotic thing that had---Okay, that had appealed to her somewhat sensitive nature and turned her into the mother hen from hell.  
  
She gave up trying at the door.  
  
And discovered, after digging around in her pocket for a while, that her house key was in the jacket Inuyasha had on. Mumbling under her breath, the college student reached into her coat pockets on the sleeping man, half expecting him to wake up, grab her wrist, and start the whole thing over again.  
  
He merely snored.  
  
Kagome felt slightly triumphant, and promptly decided that she was going to need profound psychiatric help after all this was over. Which would be soon, because there was no way she was going to keep him, her, hell, it around for long.  
  
He is male, though, most unmistakeable. So she was given to a bit of drama, at times. Considering her major, she believed it was her right.  
  
Unlocking the cold door, Kagome pushed in and wondered if someone had either recently set fire to the building, or if her father had turned up the thermostat. It was almost burning hot in her child-hood home. Talk about a ridiculous homecoming. . . And then some.  
  
With a soft sigh, she surveyed the entrance, untouched in the years she had been gone. The young woman had attempted to avoid the house and shrine after Souta's near death, as if it were cursed somehow. Until tonight, she had been successful.  
  
Such was the way of fate.  
  
Returning for her unplanned and not entirely welcome visitor, Kagome once nore managed to prop him up and drape his upper-body on her back. At this rate, her back would be gone by the time she was thrity.  
  
Not good to think about.  
  
Managing to clomp her way to the living area, Kagome eyed the couch in relief. She could dump the sleeping Inuyasha there (How did he manage to do it? Light sleeper, her arse.) and then wash up, eat, and hit the sack.  
  
However, things did not start as she had planned. Firstly, as soon as she was near the couch, Kagome collapsed on it with her sleeping charge still on top of her. Secondly, she was a hell of a lot more tired than she had thought, which meant she was more than tempted to just sleep where she lay, weight on her back or not. Thirdly, Inuyasha's scant body heat, coupled with the temperature of the room, was making Kagome yawn even now.  
  
There is no way in hell. . . She had drifted off to sleep before the thought was even finished.  
  
Some time later, Kagome was awakened by cool air on her face. The front door! The sluggish woman tried to get up, only to be pinned down by a large amount of weight. Struggling for a bit, Kagome heard someone groan and remembered all that had happened. "Ah, damn." She concentrated on wriggling herself free, not feeling like inviting every snowflake falling over Tokyo into her parent's home. Well, make that her father's home. Her mother had been in a mental institute ever since her brother's accident.  
  
Almost free, she froze as she felt something pricking her side. Trying to catch a glimpse of what was poking her, Kagome attempted to move Inuyasha's wandered arm. As the points of slight pain dragged in proportion to her movement of Inuyasha's arm, she had her answer. "You're the only person I know who could manage to be this annoying while asleep."  
  
Finally freeing herself entirely from the confining body weight, Kagome fell to the carpeted floor with an inelegant huff. "Today is so not my day." She be damned if she didn't sound like she was right back in highschool, with her highschool friends and her highschool work and worries. . . Not in college, with a grown something or another sleeping on her couch.  
  
And most definitely not sitting next to that something's feet. Cold feet, she amended, lightly touching their pale surface. Really cold feet.  
  
Not that she really cared, that is. No, she could really care less. . . Though she realized as she slowly gained her feet she was walking to the door to ensure it's state of closedness and next she would be finding. . .  
  
What?  
  
Hope? Hell no, not with the lying leech of a-  
  
Of a what? What exactly did she have against Inuyasha? His walking about, speaking as if it were only yesterday that he had fallen alsleep, as if years had not come and gone? Oh, yes, she could tell herself this was the ultimate reasons, his waking at her touch while Souta. . .  
  
While Souta's heart beat and his lungs were filled with air. "Every reason in the whole damn world." Her footsteps clacked on the floor, and she understood for the first time that she had never taken off her shoes. Sighing, Kagome decided to deal with that later.  
  
Right now she had a freezing creature on her couch, and a wet one wearing a hospital gown to top it off. Which reminded her. She'd need to pull out something dry from her father's weardrobe.  
  
In turn, this only meant she was going to have to undress, if removing her jacket and the flimsy gown consisted of 'undressing', Inuyasha.  
  
At least she'd know for sure if he was male.  
  
Bad Kagome. Think about what's really important-Sexing the bastard on your couch isn't one of them. The irony lie within the fact that keeping said bastard warm did count as an important deed. Marching up the steps while fuming, as best as one so physically exhausted as she could, even after her brief nap. So a few fumbling advances and a half wavering walk to her father's room consisted of her rage.  
  
Go me.  
  
Annoyed that she had enough pity for a person she didn't particularily like to make sure he didn't die, she grabbed the first shirt and sleeping shorts that she encountered. After a brief though, she pulled the comforter off her father's bed as well, dragging it behind her as she made her way back down the hall and stairs. Pausing at the entrance to the living room, she blearily eyed the thermostat.  
  
. . . 89°?  
  
No wonder the house was so warm. Had her father expected to be half frozen when he came home, into the extremes of cold? Perhaps-Even now Kagome felt her senses growing fuzzy from the warmth. Amazing, really, that she had ever felt the cool air from outside. Almost did it defy logic, almost. Not quite.  
  
Cranking down the thermostat, Kagome wearily tossed the clothing onto the small coffee table her father had imported from France, dropping the comforter with a whuff. She forced herself to observe her unwilling guest. Inuyasha was on his stomach. His silvered-white hair was splayed across the coushins, one leg hanging completely off the couch, and the other near to following it. An arm lay pinned underneath him, the other hanging loosely to the floor where she had shifted it to earlier. All in all, she was amazed he'd even been able to stay on the couch in his current state.  
  
For the thousandth time that night, she snidely thought, Light sleeper my ass.  
  
Moving around the couch, she reluctantly dragged both his legs up to rest on it's surface. Reaching for her jacket, she felt a nervous twitter begin in the back of her mind. Ruthlessly she squashed the annoying voice, yanking her jacket away as a reaction within the world of the tangible. Inuyasha groaned, moving a little in the absence of warmth. Which was absolutely absurd to Kagome, as she was now working up a light sweat just moving in the heat of the room.  
  
Gingerly, she began to work the hospital gown off, digging his arm out from under him to finish the job. Satisfied, and unconsciously checking out the nude male, and for various reasons both anatomical and not she was certain of this, Kagome set herself on clothing him in her father's gear. Lifting the shorts, deciding they would be easier to put on him than the shirt, she paused.  
  
Hearts, kittens, and red lips decorated the item of clothing. She laughed softly, the absurdity of the boxers finally hitting her. Exactly how tired had she been? Nevermind all of that now-She was too tired to bother making an extra trip up the stairs just to find something potentially less humiliating.  
  
Putting his feet through, she began to guide the boxers up his legs, idly thinking on what exactly had possessed her to take on the role of nurse. In reflection, the answer was as obvious as it had been since she was a small child. Kagome had always sought to help, even if those she offered her assistance to held no love in their hearts for her.  
  
Who had said her sentimentality would be her doom? Probably the same person who had said Kagome could be so obtuse. Sakki, perhaps, had told her as much. Phsycology majors are such great room mates.  
  
Absolutely no sarcasm unintended.  
  
With a start, she realized she was finished. Boxers on-Mission accomplished.  
  
The shirt mocked her from the table, and she gave into inevitability. Sheer physical exhaustion would prevent her from doing more. If he wanted a shirt, he could damn well put it on himself. With that, Kagome sat down with a 'humph'. "I won't do it."  
  
"I think you've done quite enough." She stiffened. Holy shit!  
  
- - -  
  
Now the evil laughter - I make you wait forever, give you a shorter chapter, and end with a cliff hangar! *thought strikes* Erk---Might be baaaaad for me health. O_O Noooooo! Update sooner rather than later! :- P 


	4. Seeing Eye To Eye

_**Open Your Eyes – Seeing Eye to Eye**_

Kagome felt mortification flood her being, fear immediately following. Bad enough she'd taken a patient out of the hospital without permission, she'd dragged him into her home and dressed him. Slowly, painstakingly so, Kagome's eyes rose to meet answering honeyed amber ones darkened in angered annoyance. Her mouth opened, closed, and opened once more in a futile attempt to make words come forth.

Inuyasha merely continued to glare accusingly.

Giving up on speech, Kagome stood, head ducked as her mind ran without check. _I'm all alone with a sex-deprived maniac whose only known weakness is cold, I'm all alone with a sex-deprived maniac whose only known weakness is cold, I'm all alone. . ._ The mantra rolled through her mind over and over, kindly forgetting the minor details of his formerly comatose state and the nurses' attempts at murder. Her chest throbbed, the shallow scratches Inuyasha had gifted her with earlier acting up for the first time since their attainment. Whatever small shock she'd suffered from was wearing off as she lifted one hand to hold to her chest.

Kagome edged around the couch, nervously making her way toward the entrance to the room. Inuyasha was talking, though nothing registered as the slightly panicked young woman came closer to her goal.

Inuyasha's eyes followed her progress with clear disgust. He wasn't sure how or why, but this pathetic being had woken him from the darkness and taken him in after he'd collapsed.

She'd also done a bit more than that, but he didn't care to think on _that_ at the moment. Now was not the time to let instinct or hormones rage, even as her subdued fear wreaked havoc on his senses. "Well? Cat got your tongue?" The young woman made no sign she'd heard him. He repeated the statement, louder this time. Inuyasha was once more greeted with silent un-acknowledgment.

His thin patience was fraying as he followed Kagome with his eyes, the small pain in the back of his head and the various aches throughout his body registering for the first time and angering him further. Inuyasha was not particularly pleased with his situation, or what little he knew of it.

The last thing he could remember before waking up in the sterile, ammonia laden hospital room was driving. With Kikyou. She'd been afraid, more-so than the woman walking away from him, but of her same age, figure, stature, coloration. . . The list ran on and on. For a moment Inuyasha had fooled himself with believing this woman could have been the one in the car with him that day, when something had gone terribly wrong. Yet that was only a moment. The odds of Kikyou ending up amnesiac with a crafted 'family' were outrageous. He was no intellect, but he had more than enough common sense to know that. And this strange woman had a family indeed. Or at least a brother, a younger one he supposed.

Inuyasha's lip curled at the thought, baring unfriendly canines longer than any natural-born humans eye-teeth. He took some small satisfaction in the knowledge that if this pathetic mortal were to see his predatory grimace, she'd have been even more terrified.

There-in lay the problem. As of this moment, she wasn't seeing much of anything. In fact, even if she were, everything might appear too surreal for her and lead her to the false conclusion she was dreaming.

All this thinking was making the pounding in his head even worse. With a groan more than laced with aggression, Inuyasha rubbed at his forehead. "What the _hell_…" he began, trailing off. A lethargy and tiredness was slowly permeating his senses, so similar yet unlike the one he'd just woken from. Fighting as much as he could against the overwhelming urge to just lie where he sat, the canine humanoid felt himself slowly drawn back with heavy eyelids dropping ever lower.

Within moments, and despite all his best efforts, he was once more dead to the world.

---

Perhaps hours had passed; perhaps even days. All Kagome knew when she woke up was that the alarm clock was persistently bleeping to the uncaring morning world, awaiting the violence that would stop its primary function and ultimately make it frivolous.

Kagome wasted little time in complying, her tired mind raising her hand and slamming it down on the snooze button in an effort to stave off the inevitable – the motion of waking. Yet already the time for slumber was passing, and its need on Kagome was passing too.

Stifling a yawn, the young woman sat up in bed, slowly drawing her errant limbs close. She looked up, forcing her eyes to adjust to the dim, comforting light that filtered through the dusty blinds and the blinding brilliance of morning that came from the open door.

_The one she had most assuredly closed last night…_

---

The ebony darkness had fallen in around him like a heavy blanket. No – more like water, coming with the tide to weigh him down and wrap him in its cold embrace promising forever, because forever was the only promise he had ever made and broken, yet not.

Yet as Inuyasha woke, it was not to cold, to drowning, as he thought it would be. Nor was it to Kikyou's smile, secret and small and promising, no, she was gone.

She was gone.

Grief… That is what he should be feeling right now. Inuyasha couldn't. He couldn't grieve for something that he didn't feel was real.

For what wasn't real…

At least to him.

Anger began to fill the void, anger and purpose, fevered as it was.

"The woman," he growled, seeing Kagome in his mind's eye, furious for how she looked so like his beloved, his heart, his home, but she wasn't. No, this impostor woman was nothing more than a taunt, a tease sent by some cruel god…

Or his brother.

Inuyasha threw the blankets off him, standing in the ridiculous clothing that only enhanced his pale ivory skin's pallor. His mane's pallor. And the vivid gold that lingered as fire-touched in his eyes.

He had to find her. And soon.

He needed proof.

He needed to see…

---

Claws descended at her throat. No, not claws – fingernails. Or so Kagome thought as hands clasped around her neck and Inuyasha shook her hard. "You have to take me!" There was something wild in his voice, in his angered, furious demand. "You have to take me to her grave."

Kagome gurgled her response, not knowing whose grave the man choking her wanted to visit. If he didn't let up soon, it would be hers, and she had a feeling that wasn't what he was after.

Yet Kagome was scared. Stiff.

Then the anger flared to life as her weak scrabbling at his hands on her throat turned into an empowered tearing.

Inuyasha seemed not to notice. "Why aren't you saying anything?" he demanded, nostrils flaring.

_Almost… There…_ Kagome's hands ripped Inuyasha's from her throat, as she responded with a quick punch in the face, panting as she scrambled through the blankets to the steady floor, staring at Inuyasha's shocked form on the bed. "I'm sorry," she said, sarcasm dripping from her every word, "I've never been into all that kinky shit." One hand lightly touched the abrasions, and she grimaced.

There would be no apologizes from Inuyasha. "Bitch," he spat, rubbing his jaw and moving forward off the bed itself, "You will take me to Kikyou's grave, or else…" His gaze held menace.

Kagome was shocked. He had just been strangling her because he though she would automatically know that when he was raving like a mad man about visiting "her" grave that Kagome would know "her" was Kikyou. After saving his ass not once, but twice, he had the audacity? And now, he was ordering her in her own home to take him to where he needed to go?

"You'll what?" she said, half bravado, most in anger.

The male grinned toothily, cracking his knuckles. "I'll kill you."

She doubted he was joking, but Kagome did not find it in her to particularly care at the moment. "Try."

Inuyasha growled, lunging at Kagome, who scrambled backward madly and pushed herself onto her feet. "Calm down!" she shrieked, edging away from the white haired demonesque man on the floor. "I can't help you out here – I have no idea where the grave you are looking for is. I don't keep a running tab on where everyone has been buried in the last five years!"

Something in Inuyasha's eyes seemed as if they were accusing Kagome of neglectfulness to society by not doing exactly just that.

Frustration, anger, and fright were taking their toll on Kagome, and she was fast nearing her breaking point. When Inuyasha rose to his feet, literally growling at her much as a dog would, Kagome could take it no more.

"I hope the damned police find me and lock me up for kidnapping charges so I don't have to deal with your idiopathic, self-loving, angry pity party _anymore_!" Kagome flew around her bed and out through the bedroom door, soaring down the stairs and barely pausing to grab her jacket off the coat rack and slip into her clogs before descending into the frigid morning snowfall. Ice flakes clung to Kagome's chilling form, though she plunged obstinately on away from the house. No light penetrated the cloud cover, and as the flakes eddied with the shifting winds she could make out a dark building to her left. Shifting directions, Kagome moved on, shivering as the warming effect of her anger and adrenaline waned.

She recognized the sliding doors to the bone eater's well when her finger's touched the wooden surface. For a moment, she paused, remembering back to when her grandfather had still been alive. She'd asked him back then if this were a wishing well, and if she could make her wishes and dreams real by crying them out to the well. He had laughed, and said maybe – but that was not the legend behind the well. He told her then how in the ages long past the remains of youkai that the villager's had slain were thrown into the well's depths, never to be seen again. He had also said be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it, yet these colloquialisms had been as natural to her deceased grandfather as breathing.

"Grandpa, can I make a wish?" Kagome murmured, using force to move the sliding door on its track, disturbing the snow that lay in its path. Her lips felt chapped from the short exposure to the outside, and her tongue ran over them as she stepped inside and pulled the door shut. Stepping back, she let out a sigh, noting the frigid bloom of air that formed in front of her as she did so. "Grandpa, can I?" She was cold, miserable, and frightened. Her mother was insane, her brother in a coma, her father a workaholic, and her childhood home a refuge for a homicidal maniac. Only the last of these was a new development, but in her current state, even the knowledge she already had was too much. Moving toward the stairs, Kagome eyed the top of the well, with its wooden cover. Lifeless, like the dark.

A sudden gust of wind sent an eerie howl through the small building, startling Kagome forward. Unseen ice sent her tumbling forward, with a helpless cry. Barely managing to keep on her feet, Kagome flew forward and down to land on top of the well cover, bashing her shin against the well lip hard enough to break the bone, knocking the wind from her lungs and bashing her skull against the wood cover. She felt dizzy, but the absurdity of the situation overwhelmed her. Laughter, weak, maniacal, welled forth from her lips, aggravating her pounding head as she lay prone, too weak to hope to move. Pained tears formed in her eyes and froze as they tried to run tracts down her cheeks, becoming icicles on her flushed skin. _Grandpa, _she thought, isolated in the cold, _Can I make a wish?_

"I wish... Someone would save me," Kagome whispered, her eyes closing as she sunk into oblivion, unaware of the cracking occurring beneath her. _Someone, please..._

_- - -_

_Eyes watched her, thousands of them. They were heartless, inescapable accusers of – of what? She didn't know, but she felt the anger. She could taste the hate. _

_White was burning away the eyes, killing the watchers. There was a poison in the white that was the antithesis of pure – a hint of an underlying contradiction. The form of a canine, large and wild-eyed formed from the white, large, imposing, and menacing. A voice lay over the scene, when a blended figure of red and white streaked across her dream vision, facing off against the white dog. "There were legends of the offspring of youkai and ningen. By far, they were believed to be the more powerful beings, and less stable. Such children were not accepted by either side of their family tree, seen as evil by both sides. Not demon enough to be youkai – not human enough to be ningen." The white dog turned away from the humanoid figure, dismissing its presence. She could feel the anger radiating form the blended figure of red and white, the anger and the underlying pain._

_Hanyou._

_Hanyou._

_**HANYOU.**_

_- - - _

She remembered being cold, first. There was unforgiving, rough, bumpy cold beneath her, pressing uncomfortably into her skin. Cold, hanging in the air itself, tortured her as it snuck in and stole the warmth from her body. Cold in the pit of her stomach, in her head.

The warm hand that grabbed her sent an electric shock through her body, fogged as her brain was. Someone turned her over, a low groan forming in her belly and creeping up her throat, leaving a burning path of pain. "You..." Her words were not making sense. Was this her savior? Another word, another one she remembered from dreaming – what was it? What _was_ - "Hanyou," Kagome whispered, the blurry red and white figure above her registering. _From my dream... Is it?_

A harsh "Keh!" exploded from the one over her. Kagome's vision adjusted, and she found herself looking up at Inuyasha, who currently looked as if he had eaten a particularly bad egg roll.

"Wha-"

"Shut up." Inuyasha grunted, lifting Kagome's dead-weight. She registered her surroundings, and the splintered wood on the bare ground.

_Bare ground?_ "Where-"

"The bottom of some well."

The bone eater's well. "How-"

Inuyasha growled in frustration. "Do the words 'Shut up' mean **nothing** to you?" He shifted Kagome's bulk, jostling her pounding head. She felt light-headed, temporarily losing her vision as Inuyasha lifted her upward. Silence was singing to her, if not as loudly as Inuyasha's own silence.

The world was flooding back into Kagome's vision when Inuyasha stepped down from the lip of the well to the ground. He tossed Kagome off his shoulder, watching impassively as she fell to the ground with a thud. He glared at her, expectantly.

Kagome gasped, laying back against the ground and clasping her hands around her head. Forcing her eyes open, she met Inuyasha's slanted gaze. "What?"

Inuyasha raised his lip. "You are going to take me to her grave."

_This is ridiculous._ Kagome just concentrated on breathing through her teeth. Her pounding head made her temporarily immune to the cold.

"Now," Inuyasha demanded. Kagome didn't flinch.

Inuyasha growled, took one striding step toward Kagome, threw her over his shoulder, and then proceeded to march outside into the snow storm. Kagome bit her tongue holding back her moans of pain, shivering as the frigid outside air hit her like a tidal wave. "Wait," she groaned, "Wait! What, what are you doing?"

He grunted.

Kagome grimaced, frustration rising in her breast. "I can't bring you _anywhere_ without my keys!" She paused. "And clothing!"

"You obviously thought you were dressed well enough when you ran out here and fell down a well," Inuyasha returned snidely. Kagome remained silent, though she could not prevent herself from shivering once again.

Silence fell over the two. Kagome sighed, mulling over the fact that while her teeth were chattering away, at least her head didn't feel like it had been lodged in a vise. Now it only felt like it had been hit by several solid lead bats.

Snowflakes were gathering on the back of Kagome's neck, sending chills down her spine – literally. With as much as she was shivering, Inuyasha would have to be a particular type of moron to not notice. Then again, she was not currently in the best frame of mind, so it could be entirely possible that she was severely misjudging recent events. After all, waking up to find a near-total stranger looming over her raving about wanting to see dead significant other's grave sites.

Then again, maybe it wasn't her head, nor her impromptu escape through the snow to the well house.

Why did it have to be so damn cold?


	5. Unseen Bonds

**Open Your Eyes:**_ Section Four – Unseen Bonds_

Kagome mulled over this fact, when she found herself tossed down again – to land on the hardwood of her inner home. To say she was surprised would be an understatement. From her brief, if eventful, contact with the charity case that was Inuyasha, Kagome had come to the understanding that compromise consisted of Inuyasha unconscious.

"Sixty seconds," Inuyasha stated flatly.

_He can't be serious,_ Kagome thought. She didn't move, staring up at this stranger to her home, lips parted slightly in shock.

"What? Change your mind?" He took a step toward her. His patience, if such a thing existed, was ending.

Kagome forced herself to stand slowly, with dignity. She'd be damned if her hellish house guest would be able to dictate anything more than he already was.

What was the chance that she could lose him in the process of cemetery hopping?

The thought made her decide to speed up.

Pants.

Boots.

Trench coat.

...Sunglasses?

Kagome did not have time to ponder her chosen outfit. Frankly, she did not want to be recognized by anyone, though why in particular she believed trench coats and sunglasses would save her from recognition she didn't know.

Stopping in the kitchen, Kagome tried to remember where the aspirin was secreted away, rubbing her forehead as if to rid herself of the pain through her fingers. Hell, the idea wasn't half bad, but it was wholly unorthodox. Even as she popped the cap off of the pain relieving medication's bottle, Kagome attempted to magically learn the art of natural mental healing.

In return, all she got was a continuous pounding in her head, a reminder of shallow chest wounds inflicted by the anger management lacking deranged coma recoveree formerly known as Inuyasha, and whiplash with how fast she threw back her head to swallow the pill.

And Inuyasha still had the nerve to look murderous when she approached, purse in hand and keys in pocket.

"What?" Kagome met Inuyasha's glare with a flat stare. "Did I take too long, precious asshole?" She was not in the best, nor brightest, of moods.

Nor was Inuyasha. His hand flew out, encircling her throat. "We're going. Now."

She was motionless, frightened and wondering how in hell she ever could have felt sorry for this terror with terrier ears. Which reminded her, once Inuyasha had stopped trying to drain her of all life, maybe he could shed some light on the ear situation.

That is, if he ever did decide to stop trying to drain her of all life.

Inuyasha cringed a bit, the hand on Kagome's throat tightening reflexively as if reacting to pain, then quickly drew away. Resisting the urge to rub her sore throat, or the water that had gathered in her eyes, Kagome tried to calmly walk past his bulk. She succeeded in making it to the front door, when his hand locked around her upper arm.

"No running." His eyes seemed to bore holes into the back of her head.

_Just try and get me to answer to that, bastard,_ Kagome thought defiantly, not bothering to acknowledge his words, pushing open the door and walking out into the storm again. She made it a point to disregard his keeping step with her, especially as she could sense the tension building.

Odd how she tempted a fate that so many victims in the stories she studied submitted to. Or, perhaps not.

Still, after a stiff journey down the never ending stairs, a brusque reintroduction to the car of her father's dreams, and a long, snow-laden and dangerous trip through the streets of Tokyo, Kagome had parked at the first of possible burial sites on her mental list. Calling the hospital up to reaffirm may have been wise for the sake of being right, but Kagome didn't want to deal with the questions that would have arose from her probing. As it were, enough had been turned around in the past forty-eight hours.

"Here."

Inuyasha looked at the collection of ramshackle buildings, sneering. "Don't fuck with me, wench! This isn't a, a, a... A place for dead people!"

Kagome looked tired, and unimpressed. She pointed at a sign half-obscured by snow, reading "Aoyama Bochi."

Inuyasha peered off in the direction of the sign. His frown deepened. "What?"

"Aoyama Bochi. Ring any bells?" She took his blank look to mean no. "The hospital nurses spread the ashes of people whose family members cannot be located under the cherry trees. I can't say for sure if this is where they spread her remains, but most the hospitals in Tokyo have a similar practice."

"Kikyou," Inuyasha whispered, his eyes peering off toward something beyond the falling snow, beyond seeing. "You can't be gone..." He took off at a flat run, leaving Kagome behind.

She sighed, shaking her head. _It must be painful,_ Kagome thought, before wincing as the scratches on her chest throbbed as if to remind her of their presence. "Why do I care?" she asked, voice dampened by the snowfall. "Why couldn't it have been Souta?"

Kagome stopped, mind racing. There was something bugging her, something that had happened yesterday. Something to do with Souta...

"His name. He responded to his name!" Kagome took flight, in the direction Inuyasha had so recently departed. _He responded to his name!_

Shapes emerged on either side of her, hedging her pathway in the snowfall. Kagome had to find Inuyasha, had to ask him why.

Had to ask him why Souta had responded to his name.

So preoccupied was Kagome that she didn't notice the person in front of her until she'd run smack into them, falling back and hitting her head on the ground, the hapless individual landing with a thump in a snowbank. "I'm so sorry!" Kagome said, scrambling to her feet even as she was dazed. She offered her hand to the person sitting in the snow. "I didn't see you, and I was in such a hurry, I apologize-"

"Don't worry, it was nothing," said a female voice. The woman accepted Kagome's hand, and soon was on her feet. "If you don't mind me asking, why were you in such a hurry?"

"I was trying to catch up to someone, actually." Kagome peered up the path, seeing nothing. "Have you seen anyone come by here?"

"No, not anyone other than yourself. I apologize, but it seems I am unable to help in your search." Kagome sighed, but the other woman cocked her head to the side. "Still, if whomever you're searching for came this way, they certainly will pass by again to return. In which case, the least I can offer you is a warm place to wait, and a fireside to chase the chill from your bones." The woman turned, walking back the way she'd come.

"Oh no, please," Kagome began, but the woman didn't stop, forcing Kagome to follow her or chance being seen as incredibly rude. "I really shouldn't – If I can't see him-"

"Ah, so it is a man, is it?" Laughter hung on to the woman's words as she pushed open a door into a small shop.

"Well, yes, but not _that_ kind of man, he's really just more of an... Unwanted house guest, but I can't just leave him out alone, and I've really only known him for two days, so really, it's not like that at all..." Kagome trailed off, a bit flustered and curious as to her surroundings.

"Not like what, were you saying?" The woman met Kagome's gaze, eyes kind and filled with soft, friendly teasing light. "In any case, it is not my place to meddle in the affairs of others." The woman motioned toward a chair next to a small hearth. "Take a seat, please."

"I really can't, if he goes by and I can't see him-"

The woman waved her hand in the air. "Posh. The snow's lightening already." Indeed it was, to Kagome's surprise. "Would you care for some tea? I've a pot brewing, as it is."

"Why... Yes, thank you." She sat down, peering out through the shop window to her left. A ghostly reflection of herself shone dimly on the window's surface, the odd flame flickering to life on its lucid surface. A strange assortment of smells wafted past Kagome, and she took a moment to look around the shop's innards. Odds and ends, trinkets and charms and other religious paraphernalia hung from racks and sat on shelves.

"Green tea alright with you?"

"Oh, yes! Thank you," Kagome blurted, heat rising to her cheeks as if in examining the store she were violating some secret code of conduct.

The woman emerged from the back of the shop, mug in hand. "Nothing fancy, mind you, but I've learned that tea tastes just as good in mugs as it does in cups." Extending the mug to Kagome, the woman's eyes seemed to widen a fraction, and the hand holding the mug quivered. "Oh my," she breathed.

Kagome took the mug in concern. "What is it? And thank you," she added, motioning to the mug.

"Nothing," the woman said, turning away. "Nothing at all." She paused, as if collecting herself, and then turned around, a warm smile on her face. "How terribly rude of me, forgetting to introduce myself. I'm Kaede, and this is both my home and my work."

"I'm Kagome Higurashi."

"Ahh. Pleased to meet you, Ms. Higurashi."

"Kagome, please," she interjected.

"Kagome," Kaede amended with a smile.

"What exactly is your work, Ms...?"

"Kaede will do fine, dear. I'm a bit of a miko, you could say, but I suspect you already guessed at that, what, being of that calling yourself." Kaede sat down in a chair further from the fire, watching Kagome unobtrusively.

Kagome laughed. "I'm really not, though I do live on a shrine. I'm actually attending college."

"What's your major?"

"Mythology."

"Interesting choice, in this day and age. Are you planning to become a professor yourself?"

"I haven't given it much thought. Even with just a bachelors, I hope to make some use of the knowledge to write and work with at the shrine." Something moved in the snow, distracting Kagome. A flash of black, the same color as she wore now. Inuyasha had been wearing a red coat, she thought.

"Do you see something?"

"I think so," Kagome answered slowly, standing and moving closer to the window. The red seemed to be stopped for the moment. "He was wearing a red coat-"

Then two amber eyes locked with her flint gray ones, the thin plane of glass the only barrier between her nose and that of Inuyasha's. With a choked scream, Kagome lunged backward, smacking into the chair she had risen from. A stark ringing filled her ears while the glass of the window broke under Inuyasha's claws and a blinding purple-pink light filled the room. Behind her, Kaede spoke in a garbled, old tongue, prayer beads dangling between her pointed fingers.

"Inuyasha, you should not be here!" It was Kaede's voice the called out with such command. Kagome felt a faint shock, but since having fallen to the wooden floor as glass and snow exploded inward into the shop, she'd been in great enough shock.

There was no way Inuyasha could have moved so quickly – so far!

The ringing in her ears was being replaced with a whizzing, small white balls of light zooming over her head to circle around Inuyasha's, seemingly unseen by the man. "Kagome," Kaede said firmly, now standing next to where she sat, "Control him."

"But I, I can't! I don't know-"

"A word! Find the word!" Kaede looked strained. Inuyasha was approaching, lip raised in sneer as if counting the seconds until... What?

Kagome opened her mouth, no words escaping. She stared hard at the man, imposing and wild with emotion, pain and something more. She saw his snarl, his clawed hands, the white mane of hair, and atop it all, his pointed, white ears. _Canine ears... _ "**Osuwari!**"

To her amazement, he fell down to the shop floor with a crash, glass crunching beneath him as a strangled snarling curse flew breathlessly from his lips. Eyes wide, face buffeted by a sudden wind and storm of flakes moving in through the broken remains of the display window, Kagome spoke in slow, haltering bursts, adrenaline high in her bloodstream and understanding far away. "What... Just... Happened?"

At her side, Kaede sighed. "It seems there is much explaining to be done."

Kagome turned her face up to the other woman, greeted by the sight of a small smile.

"Anyone care for some tea?"

Well, dear readers, now I would like to pause and say thank you to those whom have been reading and trust I have not entirely lost myself to the dark/light world beyond this side of the monitor. From now on I am determined to do individual Thank-Yous per say the latest reviewers. I have a precious few of you, and I know I experience a thrill when I see an author has appreciated my review enough to thank me by name. So, to start off, here I go!

**Hibi_ – _**I am glad that you are happy with my last chapter update, and heaven knows, as slow as I have been, my story has not exactly been any faster in the revealing. Anticipation, eh? I was struggling trying to reach a point where Kaede and the prayer beads could come on the scene before trying to explain the Shikon's role in this world. Next chapter opens up part of that, so, heh, w00t! Don't you love the wait? Merry Christmas to you too, and much thanks! I hope this chapter was well received. )

**Aryll Silverhawk – **Not much happened in the chapter previous to this, more of a set up for getting here so that I could have Inuyasha controllable by Kagome, and the mystery of the Shikon could start to be explored. So, heh, not that much was really missed in skim reading. Such honesty, it is admirable! XD

**Lina-sama** – I am hoping to keep updates rolling out more consistantly than before, and thank you profusely for finding my story interesting enough to want an update. :: grin :: It always makes me smile to know someone enjoys anything I put effort into, and in this case, a story that has been sitting in my brain for some time.

**Hell's Sadistic Soul** – I am glad to see someone in the multiples for reviewing! P You see, this is a good thing on my planet. Like playing tag team encouragement. I am glad you do not want to rush an update, and I am glad that this time update soon actually produced an update... Soon! I am immensely glad you enjoy my writing, and hope not to let you down in future chapters.

**Priestessmykala** – There is much hope in my that this story will be going where I want it to, and now that I have started myself rolling down the path I'd seen years ago I believe I am that much closer to the entirety. I am happy that you can envision Inuyasha acting in a manner such as I have written, because I sure as hell try to think what he'd do, but the situations are far different than those in the true series and small portions of the characters are as well.

**Duet Masaki – **I thank you for your review, and hope that this chapter is certainly soon enough. I must say, you have some of the more awesome assortments of Favorite Stories. Ever wonder what a Rocky Picture version of Inuyasha would be? Me either. P

Allrightythen.... I hope that any concerns you have as a reader are addressed to me, and must say in pause that I may as well see if some people care to take a guess at what the Shikon's tie into the story shall be...

First, cap what we, or well I, know. Kagome got the Shikon as a gift from her brother Souta four years prior to waking Inuyasha. Inuyasha's name made Souta's brainwaves fluctuate. Souta therefore recognized Inuyasha's name, we can assume. On waking, Inuyasha recognized, and temporarily managed to steal, the Shikon, which currently acts as a piece of jewely. His response was one of anger, so to speak. Souta must have met, or become involved with Inuyasha prior to Inuyasha's coma, which happened one year _before_ Souta's. Souta went into a coma after some sort of car related accident. (Yes, I happen to know exactly how, but since I haven't stated so yet in the story, foul game to cry it out early here) What could possibly tie Inuyasha, Souta, and the Shikon together? What purpose does the Shikon serve?

The hint: The holder of the Shikon has power, but not in terms of strength. Knowledge of the Shikon can be, how do you say it, addictive?

Any guesses?

PS: Durn long A/N. Oo


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